Technocracy fails not because people are dumb, but because it enshrines the wrong kind of intelligence. Real wisdom emerges in the interplay of lived experience, mutual trust, and shared interpretation—things only real communities can cultivate.
@pluralistic on "Ostromizing Democracy"
https://pluralistic.net/2023/05/04/analytical-democratic-theory/#epistocratic-delusions
Beyond Social Products: Comparing the Communitarium Project and New_ Public's Vision
New_ Public wants better digital communities. So does the Communitarium Project—but it starts further back, aiming not to reform platforms but to form new communities, infrastructures, and counter-realities beyond capitalism. A comparison:
Language of the Left: Worker
Class, Myth, and the Obsolescence We Must Design
“Worker” has been a rallying point and a mythic role. But its durability is both a strength and a trap. If the Left is to move forward, we must use the term strategically—while refusing to treat it as permanent. The worker must remain historically specific, ideologically provisional, and ultimately, replaceable.
#LanguageOfTheLeft
#CommunitariumProject
#SeizeTheMeansOfCommunity
https://seizethemeans.communitarium.org/baslow/language-of-the-left-worker
The Communitarium Project: Oh God, Not Communes Again!
The Communitarium Project isn’t about reviving communes or escaping society—it’s about building transitional, interstitial spaces where people can live, think, and act together differently. Not utopias, but shared infrastructures for sense-making, coordination, and care—without enforcing consensus or closing down difference.
#CommunitariumProject
#SeizeTheMeansOfCommunity
https://seizethemeans.communitarium.org/baslow/the-communitarium-project-oh-god-not-communes-again
I'm confident that most of the people likely to read this toot already know that, while it is possible for gossip to be malicious and destructive, gossip as a practice is vital to human communality.
If you find yourself needing to make the case to someone who *doesn't* know this, here's a nice little video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zHmoWNIO6eo
A single account can have many channels on (streams). This makes learning the platform more complicated but also much more powerful.
I've begun trying to figure things out and I'm making mistakes along the way:
I also figured out (duh!) that I can follow @streams here.
I've found a very useful summary of (streams) software features here:
Federated single sign-on
Federated access control
Groups
Events
Permissions
Cloud Storage
Editor
Share
Lists
Extend
Guest Pass
Friend Zoom
Location Services
Delivery Reports
Failsafe (identity and content cloning)
ActivityPub "Client to Server" API
I've created a group in which members of social.communitarium.org can ask each other questions, post discoveries and clarifications, and offer advice about the (streams) platform. It's called "What Have I Gotten Myself Into?" and anyone with a Fediverse account may follow it (and maybe -- I'm not sure -- join it) at:
@wtf
#SeizeTheMeansOfCommunity
#CommunitariumProject
Idiotism: The Enclosure of the Self and the Limits of Leftist Language
Neoliberalism thrives on idiotism—enclosure of the self, severing people from collective life. Historically, “idiot” meant disengagement; under capitalism, it became an insult. Leftist language must resist this by rooting itself in real communities of practice, rebuilding speech communities, and reclaiming political meaning from ideological enclosure.
https://seizethemeans.communitarium.org/baslow/idiotism-the-enclosure-of-the-self-and-the-limits-of-leftist-language
#SeizeTheMeansOfCommunity
#CommunitariumProject
Why the Language of the Left No Longer Moves Us – And What We Can Do About It
The Left’s key terms often fail to mobilize because they've been enclosed, ritualized, and detached from lived practice. Leftist organizations sustain these terms internally but they must help build outward-facing communities that integrate language into real, systemic change. We need to reclaim a vocabulary of communal power.
Is it just me, or is this op-ed in the New York Times:
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/22/opinion/andor-star-wars-leftist-radical.html?unlocked_article_code=1.Bk8.RkYe.dK8wfcIj3YcO&smid=url-share
barking up the same (or, at least, an adjacent) tree as this blog post of mine from last year:
https://seizethemeans.communitarium.org/baslow/breaking-free-why-21st-century-activism-cant-just-meet-people-where-they-live
?
What is the Communitarium Project?
The Communitarium Project is an effort to create shared spaces—both online and (eventually) offline—where people can collaborate, deliberate, and take action to challenge the status quo. It is an evolving experiment in building a digital commons for meaningful engagement, exploring alternative models of collective ownership and governance.
My development of the Communitarium Project has been based on more fundamentally theoretical thinking which I am calling the Symbiotic Intelligence Framework (SIF) and which includes the seeds of a General Theory of Interpretive Systems. I have setup an experimental ChatGPT to convey the basic ideas and discuss the implications of the framework and the Communitarium Proect more generally.
https://seizethemeans.communitarium.org/baslow/talk-with-the-framework
Socialist Media Platforms: Part II – The Bigger Picture
The Communitarium Project begins with the insight that all interpretation is social—and ends, perhaps, in communities that build and inhabit media platforms designed not for performance, but for shared life.
https://seizethemeans.communitarium.org/baslow/socialist-media-platforms-part-ii-the-bigger-picture
Socialist Media Platforms: Part I – The Elevator Pitch
What if we stopped calling them “social media”?
Whatever they once were, today’s platforms isolate more than they connect.
That’s where socialist media platforms come in.
We’re talking about a complete rethinking of what media platforms are for...not to exploit the social, but to nurture it.
https://seizethemeans.communitarium.org/baslow/socialist-media-platforms-part-i-the-elevator-pitch
The Capitalist Conscience Movement and the Communitarium Project: Two Divergent Lessons from 2008
In the wake of 2008, two responses emerged: one to soften capitalism's image through ethics and purpose, and one to move beyond it by reimagining individuality and community from the ground up. The Communitarium Project rejects capitalist assumptions, to build shared life beyond enclosure and accumulation.
The Hidden Operator: Why We See Cohn and Not Burnett
Mark Burnett didn’t just shape Trump’s image—he helped install a cultural operating system where branding is identity, competition is virtue, and spectacle feels like truth. Post 3 explores why his influence remains invisible—and how that invisibility is the very mark of hegemonic power.
https://seizethemeans.communitarium.org/baslow/the-hidden-operator-why-we-see-cohn-and-not-burnett
Idols of the Cut: Burnettism, Idiotism, and the Rise of the Branded Self
Mark Burnett didn’t just make TV—he trained us to see competition as virtue, branding as identity, and sociality as strategy. Post 2 in our series explores how his shows reflect and reinforce idiotism, possessive individualism, and the erasure of real community.
The Burnett Doctrine: How “Survivor”, “The Apprentice”, and “Shark Tank” Trained America to Love the Boss
Roy Cohn taught Trump to attack. Mark Burnett taught America to cheer. A new blog post explores how *Survivor*, *The Apprentice*, and *Shark Tank* reshaped public attitudes toward power, success, and individualism.
Socialism Is a Way of Doing Things Together
What if socialism isn’t an ideology to debate, but a way of doing things *together*—living more communally, acting more collectively, and caring more reciprocally on level ground? A brief new blog post on socialism as a lived orientation, not a doctrine.
#SeizeTheMeansOfCommunity
#CommunitariumProject
#Socialism
#CollectiveCare
https://seizethemeans.communitarium.org/baslow/socialism-is-a-way-of-doing-things-together
